Chapter 355 I Want to Marry the King
"Since all the ministers have recognized the ability of Prince Ning, then it is settled that he will be given the title of King of Side by Side."
Jun Liluo said calmly, then looked at Song Yunchu, "Yunchu, you are not allowed to refuse."
Song Yunchu smiled and bowed to Jun Li Luoxing to express his gratitude. "It is a great honor for your majesty to trust me so much. I will do my best to repay you."
The ministers saw that Jun Liluo was determined, and although they wanted to persuade him again, they knew it would be difficult.
The emperor completely ignored Prime Minister Liu's objection and casually asked several high-ranking officials. Even the highly respected Zheng Xue Shi and Shang Shu Huo, who had always been at odds with Prince Ning, agreed to the additional title. It can be seen that they did not want to anger the emperor on this matter.
The emperor's trust in Prince Ning was more than just that of a subject; he also had an undisguised love between a man and a woman.
Apart from these two points, King Ning’s achievements cannot be denied just because she is a woman.
With the support of many factors, Prince Ning's power is really difficult to shake.
If they contradicted the emperor at this critical moment, they would appear to be too tactless and might even be resented by Prince Ning. Understanding this, everyone kept silent in tacit agreement.
Too much happened today, and they need some time to slow down.
After the team returned, they quickly reached the shore.
Everyone returned to Lizhou Posthouse, and Jun Liluo took Song Yunchu to the palace.
There is a light mist lingering in the hot spring pool.
Jun Liluo held Song Yunchu in front of him.
From now on, they can be together openly without having to hide it from others. Jun Li Luo is in a very good mood.
He called out softly, "Yun Chu."
"Um?"
"The relationship between you and me can finally be seen in the light of day."
As he spoke, he rested his chin on her shoulder and slowly kissed her from behind her ear to her cheek until he turned her over to face him.
Song Yunchu raised his hand and put his arm around his neck, biting his lower lip, and whispered to him, "Your Majesty, your performance on the Imperial Boat today was good. I am very satisfied."
"Then, my dear, do you still remember that when I expressed my gratitude, I said that I would do my best to repay you?" Jun Liluo raised his eyebrows slightly, "Now is the time for you to repay me."
"I will certainly keep my word."
Song Yunchu chuckled, then grabbed Jun Liluo's shoulders, pressed him to the edge of the bathtub, and bit his shoulder!
Jun Liluo: "..."
A moment later.
"Yun Chu..."
"Um?"
"You said my shoulder hurt your teeth, why do you always like to bite it?"
"Well, you don't like this?"
“Not really…”
"So I bit too hard?"
Song Yunchu looked down at the teeth marks on Jun Liluo's shoulder and said in reflection, "I'll be gentler next time."
Jun Liluo looked into her sincere eyes, chuckled suddenly, and then hugged her tightly, "Kiss me a few more times, and it won't hurt anymore."
“…”
…
The next morning, the team continued its journey and arrived at the imperial city in the evening.
The southern tour team returned early after just passing one state, which naturally surprised everyone in the court and the country.
The first thing Jun Li Luo did when he returned to the court was to raid Prince Kang's mansion.
If you don't copy it, you won't know what it is, but once you copy it, it will really shock you.
The Wang family once estimated that Prince Kang had at least 400,000 taels of ill-gotten gains. However, after the Minister of Justice counted them, excluding the salary that Prince Kang deserved, there were about 600,000 taels of unknown money.
After Prince Kang's palace was raided, the residences of other officials involved in Prince Kang's rebellion were also raided and sealed off one after another.
Such a big move by the court naturally caused heated discussions among the people.
"In the past, I only knew that the Crown Prince of Kang was a playboy, but the King of Kang himself didn't seem like a troublemaker. I didn't expect that he was so mean and rotten in private."
"The late emperor finally managed to ban the Worry-Free Pill, but Prince Kang is actually selling this harmful thing again. Isn't he happy enough as a prince? Why is he so unscrupulous!"
"Your Majesty works hard to govern the country so that the people can live and work in peace and contentment, but these uncles are more ridiculous than each other. They are unable to contribute and only cause trouble for Your Majesty. How can they be worthy of their status as princes?!"
Chu Yuni passed by the crowd, listened to the people's condemnation and abuse, paused, and then went forward to join in the fun.
He said loudly: "Prince Yi and Prince Kang are indeed shameful. As legitimate princes, they are far inferior to Prince Ning, a prince of a different surname. I heard that Prince Kang's rebellion was the rebellion that His Royal Highness Prince Ning put down."
"Not only that, the case of the Worry-Free Pill was also investigated by Prince Ning." The follower behind him echoed, "If it weren't for Prince Ning's alertness, the consequences would be disastrous."
Upon hearing this, everyone agreed.
I still remember that a long time ago, this king of a different surname was burdened with many bad names. Later, the imperial court announced to the world that Prince Yi was plotting treason and framing loyal officials. Then everyone knew that all the evil deeds done by Prince Ning in the past were slander and rumors spread by Prince Yi out of jealousy of talented people.
However, no matter how sinister and cunning Prince Yi was, he could not resist the emperor's keen insight and he cleared the name of a loyal minister.
If we talk about being loyal to the court, Prince Ning has indeed made great contributions.
"Have you heard? This Prince Ning is a woman, and she has been dressing as a man!"
Someone in the crowd shouted, and everyone started discussing this issue again.
"No way? If he disguises himself as a man, wouldn't that be a crime of deceiving the emperor?"
"Really not." Chu Yuni quickly explained, "I heard that the identity of Prince Ning was exposed by the traitor Minister Zhou. His Majesty personally told the ministers that he knew about this and helped to conceal it. Prince Ning never deceived the emperor, he just deceived the world. If the world wants to condemn Prince Ning, it is tantamount to offending the emperor."
"Is it true? Who told you that?"
Facing the inquiries from passers-by, Chu Yuni said confidently, "Of course it's true. My brother is a member of the imperial guards and he also went on the southern tour this time. Who would dare to make up a rumor about such a serious matter?"
Chu Yuni had just finished speaking when he felt someone tugging his sleeve from behind. He turned around and saw that it was Zhong Nanyue.
Zhong Nanyue dragged him out of the crowd, "Didn't you say you would buy me pancakes? Why are you chatting with passers-by? You don't need to publicize this. Wait until Sister Yunchu is given the title of King of Side by Side, and let the world know how good she is."
Just now, she and Hu Siniang were buying rouge in the store. Chu Yuni didn't know anything about rouge, so she asked him to buy pancakes for them. However, after they bought the rouge, he didn't bring back any pancakes.
"The pancake stand was too busy. I wanted to bring you other food, but as I was wandering along, I kept hearing people talking about Prince Kang and Prince Ning. They didn't know the truth, so I took the opportunity to explain a few things to them. I can't let them think that Your Highness is wrong."
"Don't worry about that. Sister Yunchu said that the people won't be as mean as the officials."
Zhong Nanyan said leisurely, "The officials targeted her because they were dissatisfied with having a woman over their heads, and the Song Party would harm their interests, but the people could not control what happened in the court. All they wanted was to live and work in peace. Whether Prince Ning was in power or not did not affect their food, clothing, housing and transportation, so they would not and dared not question the monarch's decision. The only ones who were jumping up and down from beginning to end were the ministers."
"good."
Behind Zhong Nanyan, Hu Siniang took over the conversation, "The common people will just watch and discuss the excitement for a few days, and it will be fine once the enthusiasm has passed. They don't understand the twists and turns in the court, but they will look at the achievements. Apart from other achievements, just suppressing the rebellion and fighting the epidemic before are enough to prove your loyalty to the emperor and your patriotism. It doesn't matter whether such a pillar is a man or a woman."
"That's true." Chu Yuni responded and looked at Hu Si Niang, seeming to be hesitant to speak.
"Brother Chu, what do you want to ask?"
"……nothing."
Seeing that Chu Yuni was too embarrassed to ask, Zhong Nanyan directly helped him to answer, "He wanted to ask you, knowing that Sister Yun Chu is a woman, do you feel disappointed? Do you ever blame her in your heart?"
"What's there to blame?" Hu Si Niang laughed. "I am just the concubine of His Highness in name only. She and I are also superiors and subordinates. Do you really think of her as my husband? I am not that confused. Besides... no matter whether His Highness is a man or a woman, isn't she His Majesty's?"
The fact that she had feelings for His Highness was her own business. She had never even told His Highness about it because she knew it was impossible and therefore never bothered about it.
Her happiness had never been related to love between men and women. During the time when she played the role of a concubine, she couldn't even calculate how much money His Highness had spent.
When she learned the true identity of His Highness, she was extremely surprised, but not disappointed, let alone blame.
She just lamented the difficulty of His Highness. Except for His Majesty, His Highness had kept it a secret from everyone, including Honglian and Baizhu, whom he trusted the most.
Her Highness didn't say it, not because she didn't trust him enough, but because there was no need. Although her confidant would not reveal her secrets on his own initiative, they might be leaked accidentally for various reasons, so she had to eliminate all possibilities of exposing her identity.
It was not until the end of this southern tour to quell the rebellion that she could finally be herself again and no longer have to endure the hardship of hiding the truth for the rest of her life.
From now on, everyone will know that the brave and extraordinary King Ning is a woman.
An admirable woman.
…
After the southern tour team returned to the court, Jun Liluo ordered a two-day suspension of court sessions and personally tried King Kang.
Jun Li Luo promised King Kang that he would not harm the lives of the princess and the prince and would only demote them to commoners. In order to protect his family, King Kang finally confessed his crimes in prison. According to Jun Li Luo's wishes, he confessed all the merchants involved in the Worry-Free Pill business and made a list.
Jun Li Luo immediately ordered that all the people on the list be arrested and executed on a chosen day.
During this interrogation, one thing surprised him——
It was actually Jun Tianyi who caused King Kang's rebellion.
"If it weren't for Jun Tianyi, I would never have done such a thing! This heartless guy has no real ability, but he is very good at conspiracy and trickery. Now I have nothing to deny. You can execute me however you want. I just hope you can catch Jun Tianyi as soon as possible and make him be buried with me!"
Jun Liluo found it a little funny.
To King Kang, Jun Tianyi was undoubtedly a disaster, but it must be said that Jun Tianyi did help them this time.
If Jun Tianyi had not forced King Kang to deal with Yun Chu, causing King Kang to be exposed in advance, the Worry-Free Pill would have continued to cause trouble in those remote cities for a longer period of time.
Now that King Kang and his cronies were desperate, he and Yun Chu had already dealt with these traitors and those unscrupulous businessmen, thus eliminating future troubles.
The next day, Jun Liluo resumed the morning court session.
On this day, the faces of all the civil and military officials in the hall were very interesting.
It was because there was a golden chair next to the dragon throne where Jun Li Luo was sitting.
They could guess with their toes what Jun Li Luo was going to announce next.
There were many people present who did not participate in the Southern Tour, but they had already learned everything that happened from the ministers who accompanied the tour.
They knew exactly how Prince Ning was exposed, how Prince Kang rebelled, and what His Majesty's attitude was.
But they still found it difficult to accept Song Yunchu's re-promotion, and even at the risk of angering the emperor, they wanted to try to dissuade him again.
The number of people in the hall at the moment was several times that of the imperial boat that day. With so many mouths, they couldn't easily admit defeat in front of King Ning.
"Your Majesty, I think that the matter of conferring the title of King of Side by Side should not be handled so hastily."
"Master Zhang is right. Your Majesty can reward Prince Ning for his contribution in suppressing the rebellion with other gifts. If Your Majesty insists on conferring the title of Prince Ning, it may not be good for yourself..."
"I don't quite understand what the Xu family means." Jun Liluo looked at the person who spoke, "Why do you think that conferring the title of King of Ning will be disadvantageous to me?"
"The power of the country should be firmly in the hands of your majesty. As a minister, it is a great honor to be crowned a king of a different surname. Prince Ning is young and energetic. If your majesty continues to raise Prince Ning's status, how can you not let her become too arrogant?"
"I second what Lord Xu said."
Listening to the voices of opposition behind him, Song Yunchu remained silent.
In fact, before she came, she could already predict the reasons why the ministers opposed it, so she was not in a hurry anyway.
She has her own people arguing for her.
"Lord Xu is wrong." The Minister of Justice said in a deep voice, "Prince Ning has proved his loyalty to Your Majesty many times with his actions. If we talk about devotion to His Majesty, Prince Ning is second to none. Who among you dares to claim to be first?"
"That's because Generals Zhao and Ye are not in the court now! They have made many contributions, and their loyalty to Your Majesty is not necessarily inferior to that of Prince Ning."
"Lord Xu, it's unfair to make such a comparison." Gong Mingyuan retorted, "No matter how loyal they are, they are only ministers. Besides Your Majesty, they value their family the most. But Prince Ning... Prince Ning and Your Majesty can be called a family, and Prince Ning does not have a complicated family. His heart towards Your Majesty will be purer than that of other ministers."
"Since Prince Ning cares about Your Majesty and Your Majesty also likes Prince Ning, Your Majesty should marry Prince Ning as your queen and let Prince Ning take care of the palace affairs for Your Majesty and enrich the harem, so as to live up to Your Majesty's affection."
Gong Mingyuan frowned.
This old man's calculations are too loud.
The ancestral rules state that the harem cannot interfere in government affairs. Once Prince Ning becomes the queen, she can no longer interfere in government affairs, otherwise it would be breaking the rules.
As a member of the Song Party, how could he allow Prince Ning to leave the court?
Gong Mingyuan was about to continue arguing when he heard the emperor on the throne speak.
"I will indeed marry the King of Side by Side with you."
"Hear me carefully, it's the King of Side by Side."
"My harem is empty, is there any need to establish a queen? Prince Ning has worked hard and made great contributions, but you are not willing to obey her and are trying to force her out of the court. Are you trying to make things difficult for her, or are you deliberately trying to break my arm?!"
Jun Li Luo's voice was as clear and cold as the sound of jade.
"Is it because I am the emperor that you are not satisfied with me? Do you wish I could live a few years less?"
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